What Is Google AdSense and How Does It Work?

Learn about Google Adsense and how you can use it to advertise on your website and make money.

If you want to generate revenue from the visits your website gets, you don't have to handle the whole process yourself. In fact, you wouldn't want to. Soliciting sponsors and advertisers is a complicated and time-consuming job, and if you're the webmaster too, you'll have to be able to track their performance and estimate the value of space on your website. Google AdSense eliminates the need for any of that, putting top technology to work for your website.

1. Introduction to Google AdSense

What is Google Adsense? Google Adsense is a free and comprehensive service that makes it easier for website developers to incorporate ads into their online content.
Technically, it's a program that generates relevant banner ads and sponsored links based on the content of a website, then supplies a steady rotation of these ads (usually three per site) throughout the year.
The ads themselves are determined by the website and its visitors, and webmasters don't have to interact with the sponsors directly or conduct any transactions with anyone but Google.
If the ads perform well, the owner of the content receives a check from Google AdSense that represents the money those advertisers paid. Some people wait a year for their first check, while others derive a regular income from Google AdSense.

2. How AdSense works for your website

For most major websites that publish external ads, a marketing team has to figure out the appropriate advertisers and rates, and the web designer has to find a way to incorporate the graphics, videos, text and interactive content into the layout without letting it take over.
Google ads, on the other hand, are curated automatically and can be customized easily. They target your particular online demographic with the help of cookies that allow pull location information and search history from your visitors, as well as a Java code that generates context clues from the rest of the content on your website.
The pay you'll receive from Google AdSense will come from one of two methods of collection from advertisers: per-click and per-impression.
Some ads generate revenue every time another person opens that webpage and views the ad, but others don't pay off unless people actually click them. If the ads link to retail sites, you might even derive extra profits from clicks that led to purchases.
Google advertisers who already work with Google itself can opt out of being included in this service, but if they don't, they can submit sealed bids that determine the price of each ad.

3. Why Google Ads are different

The AdSense program isn't just convenient and potentially lucrative; it's also a wise way to keep your website attractive and user-friendly. That's because Google is so good at making ads feel seamless, both in subject and in display format.
You don't have to worry about your website looking tacky or busy, or filling it with distractions that take away from the content itself. Instead, you can count on Google's marketing expertise to make the ads as unobtrusive as possible. In fact, the full impact of Google ads actually depends on the fact that they're such an organic part of the online experience.
Treat your readers to ads that don't feel like ads at all, and treat yourself to a paycheck that rewards your keyword-rich content. See if your website is eligible to join the Google AdSense system today.